Get Back Jack

by Diane Capri

  Gaspar noticed. “What scares you about Neagley?”

  “What do you mean?”

  He flashed her his knitted-brows-over-the-nose thing, which she knew was annoyance, but said nothing.

  She laughed at him. “Does that stink-eye work to keep your kids in line? That’s the best don’t-mess-with-me look you can manage?”

  A small grin parted his lips and wrinkled his nose. But he didn’t back off. “What’s your problem with Neagley?”

  “Oh, come on. You can’t tell me you think she’s anything but an enormous toxic problem. Even you aren’t that clueless, Cheech.”

  Gaspar shrugged. “Of course not. I’m not sure what’s wrong with her, but I agree she’s far from whatever passes for normal in a woman with her resume. But what’s your problem with her?”

  Good question. At some point, she might answer.

  Before she’d been ordered not to do so, Kim had pulled Army personnel files for all the members of Reacher’s Special Operations Unit. All would have been immediately expelled from the Gandhi School of Change by Passive Resistance, but Neagley’s file was particularly disturbing. Perhaps more disturbing than Reacher’s, depending on why you were comparing the two.

  Sergeant Frances L. Neagley was a small but frightening woman. She’d refused Officer Candidate School four times during her years in the Army. That was odd, right there. Ten of those years were spent in close proximity to Reacher. From the files, it was impossible to determine which one had influenced the other. Reacher chose her for his Special Operations Unit, where she excelled during two crucial years. He’d praised her performance as smart, resourceful, thorough, and one particularly worrisome phrase that even now sent a taser-like charge up Kim’s spine: “strangely uninhibited.”

  Neagley had been fearless herself and frightening to others. Early on, a few complaints of excessive force were lodged and dismissed when the facts showed a much larger man grabbed Neagley first. Several reported that Neagley didn’t seem to move a muscle, but suddenly, they found themselves falling. Later in her Army tenure, word had gotten around and men had stopped touching her, for their own safety. Kim found the list of busted heads had overshadowed almost everything else in Neagley’s file, and the woman’s behavior was too often lethal for Kim’s taste.

  Maybe the most interesting point about Neagley was that she seemed to be the closest to Reacher. The crucial years she spent in his unit paired them together on every tough case the unit handled. When Kim asked one of the generals, he said there had been an odd connection between Reacher and Neagley that wasn’t sexual. Which, Kim felt, was odd in itself. From what she’d seen so far, Reacher seemed to relate to women as sexual partners or rescue victims, and sometimes both. Neagley was neither. Not even close.

  All of which meant Neagley was an enigma greater than Reacher himself. In a contest between Reacher and Neagley, Kim would have bet on her.

  Bottom line? Neagley was unpredictable, and unpredictable meant terrifying in Kim Otto’s world. Confronting Neagley would be foolhardy at best. Kim had deliberately planned to approach Neagley last, hoping the interview would not be necessary. But now Neagley was the only member of Reacher’s unit left and Kim had no choice.

  One choice, right choice.

  Maybe.

  What was her problem with Neagley? What wasn’t? For now, though, she chose to change the subject. “I suppose you think Dixon and Reacher were lovers.”

  His eyebrow popped up again. “You think otherwise?”

  “Just confirming how your mind works, Chico.”

  He laughed. “Don’t think I failed to notice how you dodged my question.”

  Kim shrugged. Said nothing.

  He said, “Check your phone, will you? Let’s get a look at the rest of Silver’s stuff so I can get some sleep. Long day tomorrow.”

  Kim bent and twisted and practically stood on her head reaching behind the television to check the battery level on her phone. She saw the little icon just as Gaspar’s personal cell phone chimed a salsa tune across the room. She pulled the plug on her charger and stood, feeling a bit lightheaded.

  He said, “I need to take this call and it’ll be a while. Do you mind?” The salsa tune chimed again. “I’ll call you when I’m finished, if it’s not too late.”

  “No problem. I’ll download Silver’s stuff and forward to you. Digest it. We can’t do anything more tonight anyway. We can talk in the morning.”

  Another salsa chime interrupted and this time he nodded and brought the phone to his ear.

  “I’m here,” he said quietly.

  Kim let herself out and checked to be sure the door locked behind her.

  Gaspar’s physical handicaps made him about half the partner Kim needed even when he wasn’t distracted by personal matters. Whatever his wife was calling about, Kim knew the problem was serious. Definitely something to worry about. Phone calls on the job can get people killed. No cop’s wife ever calls his work with good news. Good news from home can always wait.

  She wrestled with her decision as she slid the key card to unlock her room. Loyalty went a long way with Kim. Gaspar hadn’t failed yet and he’d managed to be there whenever she’d needed him so far. He deserved the benefit of the doubt. For now.

  She entered the room, double-locked the door, and kicked off her shoes while she argued with herself over the short list of possible solutions if Gaspar failed.

  Kim felt the Boss’s burner cell phone vibrating in her pocket. She knew his call was no coincidence. He’d probably tapped the hotel’s security system and watched her enter her room on the corridor cameras. Which meant that he’d been watching her since she’d entered the hotel. Didn’t he have anything better to do? Was it just last month when being watched by the FBI made Kim feel protected instead of threatened? It felt like another lifetime.

  “Yes?” she said, too tired to joust with him.

  “Neagley’s back in Chicago. She’s been traveling, but she returned yesterday. She’s due out again Sunday. Your flight from Kennedy won’t give you much turnaround. You leave again from National at 9:30 a.m. Don’t miss it.”

  “Good to know Neagley’s still alive,” Kim said.

  A beat passed. Two.

  He replied, “Is it?”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Friday, November 12

  4:55 p.m.

  Chicago, IL

  Neagley was the easiest member of Reacher’s old team to locate, probably because she wasn’t afraid that psychos might find her. She owned the top private security firm in Chicago. According to her website advertising, her clients were distributed around the country and the globe. Outwardly, at least, her professional life appeared somewhat unremarkable.

  Kim had discovered no evidence that Neagley had a personal life of any kind, normal or otherwise. Which worried Kim because it meant Neagley remained detached and still had nothing to lose. A woman with Neagley’s talents who had nothing to lose could be deadly.

  Three high-rise offices in three cities with only one connection: each tenant had at one time been a member of Reacher’s special investigative unit.

  Earlier today, they’d arrived unannounced in Neagley’s lobby twice, both times posing as potential clients. The first two visits had yielded nothing. Neagley wasn’t in, her receptionist falsely claimed, simultaneously suggesting they make an appointment next month or with another member of Neagley’s team.

  “Third time’s the charm, Sunshine,” Gaspar said. “It’s the rule of threes.”

  “And if it isn’t?” she asked.

  “Then we’ll figure out something else.” He pushed through the revolving door into the entrance lobby of the historic office building. The layout echoed every office building in every major US city. Another information desk, less imposing than Dixon’s Manhattan building and manned not by an experienced military officer but a series of bored part-timers. This was today’s third. He didn’t look up from his crossword puzzle when they walked past him toward the ele
vator.

  Again, they waited for the exceptionally slow elevator that would carry them to Neagley’s office on the tenth floor. Kim could easily have run up the stairs. But Gaspar would have struggled and Kim worried about depleting his energy before they confronted Neagley. When they found Neagley, he would need all he had.

  Eventually, the elevator arrived on the ground floor, its doors lumbered open, and a single unremarkable passenger emerged. Gaspar limped after her into the six-by-six-foot box and pressed the button for Neagley’s floor. Eventually the doors closed. The elevator began its ascent.

  What seemed like an eternity later, the doors lumbered open again and as Kim and Gaspar had done twice before, they emerged twenty feet left and across the corridor from Neagley’s highly polished mahogany double entrance door.

  The polish didn’t stop there.

  O’Donnell’s office had been small and functional and fit for a solo investigator with one gal Friday. Dixon’s office doubled as her home and was barely occupied.

  Both had failed to prepare Kim for her first encounter with Neagley’s State Street headquarters.

  The same armed guard they’d seen this morning and again in the early afternoon stood formally at his post on one side of the door. He was a large black man, dressed in a navy blue business suit, a white shirt, and red tie. The high polish of his boss’s digs extended to the blinding surfaces of the man’s shoes, and he carried himself like he’d been a member of the Secret Service in another life, which he probably had. Those guys were unmistakable.

  He nodded by way of greeting, perhaps acknowledging he remembered them.

  Once again, Kim was struck by the excessive quiet in the corridor. Neagley’s office must be hermetically sealed. Absolutely no audible sound escaped, which, in Kim’s experience, was an exceptional feat for any office. She refused to wonder why Neagley needed offices more fortified than Fort Knox.

  Gaspar turned the doorknob and pushed into the lobby. Kim followed and the door swung closed, perfecting a sound barrier between the lobby and the hallway. Four people were already seated within. Two men and two women. Aside from being present in Neagley’s office, which meant they were in some kind of trouble, they seemed unremarkable.

  Kim had lost the coin toss to decide who would ask for Neagley this time. Simply because they had to eat somewhere anyway, Kim accepted Gaspar’s steak dinner at Morton’s Steakhouse bet that she couldn’t manage it this time, either.

  She approached the sliding glass window partition separating the lobby from the receptionist’s desk. The glass was heavy enough to be bulletproof. Based on what Kim had read in Neagley’s file, she figured it probably was.

  The desk chair was empty. Kim glanced at her Seiko. Just after five o’clock. Perhaps the uncooperative woman had left for the day. Could Kim be that lucky? She pressed what looked like a doorbell button recessed in the wall to the left of the glass and heard nothing in response. She waited.

  Kim turned away from the frosted window when the door through which she and Gaspar had just entered opened behind them and Frances L. Neagley strode into the room.

  Neagley looked unchanged from her official Army personnel photo. Her hair was long and dark and shampoo-ad shiny. Her eyes were dark and more alive than her photo had made them seem. Her body reflected a serious gym routine, which had not been evident in the official photograph but was consistently reflected in her combat record.

  Neagley was older than Kim by maybe a decade, taller by several inches, equally slim and lithe. She wore a white T-shirt snugged up against her body under a tailored black suit jacket. Her slacks fell perfectly creased to skim the front of stylish oxfords that would serve equally well deployed as weapons or in a foot chase.

  A younger, taller man, resembling Neagley closely enough to be her twin, followed closely. He was dressed casually in jeans, leather jacket, and sneakers. He seemed hyper-focused on reaching his destination. Whatever it was. Neither slowed stride before they reached the interior entrance, next to which Kim and Gaspar stood. Neagley opened the door and stood aside to allow the young man to precede her.

  Kim sensed this was her one chance to accomplish something today. “Ms. Neagley?”

  Neagley glanced toward Kim just long enough to allow Kim and Gaspar’s approach. The three remained on the lobby side of the threshold while the young man stood a couple of feet inside the open doorway.

  Kim lowered her voice and pulled out her badge.

  “FBI Special Agents Otto and Gaspar,” she said.

  Gaspar displayed his badge wallet as well. Neagley stalled, perhaps by momentary indecision. No one offered to shake hands.

  The young man started to fidget. “Frances. Frances. Frances,” he said, uninflected, each repetition a smidge louder than the last. “Frances. Frances. Frances.”

  “Okay, Paul. Okay,” Neagley said, seeming to make up her mind about something. “Agents, this way, please.”

  She waved Kim and Gaspar through the doorway and closed it solidly behind them.

  Neagley led them along an interior passageway. Paul walked slightly behind her, intently focused on something, but Kim wasn’t sure what. When they reached a private office, Neagley waved her left arm toward the room without stopping and said to them, “Take a seat. I’ll be right back.” Neagley continued along the passageway and Paul walked away behind her.

  She’d ushered them into her personal office, though it took Kim a few seconds surveying its modest, characterless contents to be sure that’s what it was. The walls were painted nondescript beige and bare of adornment. The furniture was reasonably fine in quality, but also unadorned. Her desk chair was a high-backed, black leather ergonomic design. Expensive. Sleek. Nothing remotely frivolous.

  Unlike Dixon and O’Donnell, Neagley displayed no sentimental reminders of her Army days with Reacher’s unit.

  Gaspar was standing before the room’s window. “What a great view of Lake Shore Drive she’s got from here. I am absolutely in the wrong business. My office has a view of one the nastiest alleys in Miami. How about yours?”

  “I don’t even have a window,” Kim said, mindful that Neagley’s office was probably wired for cameras and audio inside. Probably had some sort of shield preventing inside conversations from being overheard, too.

  Gaspar laughed. “Okay. You win.”

  Neagley entered the room just then, stealthily, like a feral cat wearing socks. She stood behind her chair, sensibly manicured nails displayed while her hands rested on the leather.

  She said, “Win what?”

  “The worst office view award,” Kim said. “You might get the best view award, though. You must see some spectacular sunrises over Lake Michigan from here.”

  “I’ve got more clients to see before I can wrap up and they’ve been waiting a while already. Let’s get to it, shall we? What does the FBI want today?”

  She said “today” as if she routinely responded to the FBI. Maybe she did.

  Kim replied, “We need information from you to complete a routine background check.”

  “A background check for what?” She wasn’t hostile, exactly. More like detached.

  “We’re tasked by the FBI Special Personnel Task Force when the government is preparing to recruit a civilian.”

  “Why recruit civilians?”

  “Although the government employs millions of people, we don’t always have the expertise we need. From time to time, we hire that expertise outside the system,” Kim replied, matching Neagley’s no-nonsense tone. “We need to be sure the candidate is qualified. Mentally, physically, emotionally, and financially, as well as through his or her expertise.”

  Neagley nodded, as if the answer made sense. Maybe she was aware of the SPTF. Maybe she was just trying to get through the situation and move on with whatever her plans were for the rest of the day. She sat down and hid her hands from view, which made Kim nervous. She’d prefer to see Neagley’s hands at all times.

  Neagley asked, “What’s the job?�
��

  “That information requires a security clearance higher than ours,” Gaspar said. “Or yours, I’m afraid.”

  His participation drew Neagley’s attention from Kim for a moment, allowing Kim a chance to breathe again. Neagley looked directly at him. Maybe she wasn’t testing him. But it felt like she was.

  “Higher than your clearance, maybe. Not higher than mine.” Neagley stated this without inflection of any kind. She turned her steady gaze back to Kim. “Who’s the subject?”

  Kim made a point of observing carefully. She’d seen a variety of reactions when she first mentioned Reacher’s name to potential witnesses. She only had one opportunity to catch their immediate response. “You served with him in the Army.”

  Neagley folded her hands on the desk and continued looking steadily into Kim’s eyes. “I served with a lot of people a long time ago. What’s his name?”

  Kim decided not to speak the name at all this time. Just handed over a copy of Reacher’s last formal military photo and watched carefully for Neagley’s involuntary reactions.

  Kim’s training in human lie detection was extensive and well internalized. She’d discovered an instinct for separating the liars from the rest of the herd that had saved her ass many times. The subject’s body language was the most important indicator of truthfulness in response to surprise or threat, though it was easily missed.

  Neagley displayed nothing. No physical reactions at all. Nor did she speak. There was no question on the floor. She waited until they supplied one. She was abnormally cold. Frigid, actually. Easily the coldest potential witness they’d pressed on the subject of Reacher thus far.

  “When did you last see Reacher?” Gaspar asked.

  Neagley said, “Years ago.”

  “Where did you see him?”

  “California.”

  “How did that happen?”